Denis Norden presented television programmes on ITV for many years, including the nostalgia quiz Looks Familiar and blooper shows It'll be Alright on the Night and Laughter File.
19 Facts About Denis Norden
2.
Denis Norden's parents were George Cohen, a tailor specializing in bridal gowns, and his wife Ginny, who was of Polish heritage.
3.
The family name was changed by deed poll to Norden while Denis was a child.
4.
Denis Norden was educated at Craven Park Elementary School and the City of London School where he was a contemporary of Kingsley Amis.
5.
Denis Norden joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War and was a wireless operator with a signals unit.
6.
Denis Norden's writing career began in the Royal Air Force when he wrote for troop shows.
7.
Whilst preparing for one of these shows in 1945, Denis Norden, accompanied by fellow performers Eric Sykes and Ron Rich, went to a nearby prison camp in search of stage lighting; the camp turned out to be the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which had recently been liberated by the Allies.
8.
Denis Norden takes a young relative on a day out to a film set, where they meet several stars and production team members, but not Sean Connery.
9.
Denis Norden was later well known to television audiences for his ITV shows: Looks Familiar, It'll Be Alright on the Night and Laughter File.
10.
Laughter File, first broadcast in 1991, showed spoof adverts, real foreign adverts, practical jokes, live television mistakes and other various "oddities", which Denis Norden said, "tickled our fancies, just when they needed tickling".
11.
Denis Norden announced his retirement from his two long-running ITV shows It'll Be Alright on the Night and Laughter File on 21 April 2006.
12.
Denis Norden was then 84 years old and suffering from macular degeneration, which made it difficult for him to read an autocue.
13.
Denis Norden has since been succeeded on It'll Be Alright on the Night by Griff Rhys Jones and later by David Walliams.
14.
For years, Denis Norden was resistant to producing an autobiography, saying that much of his life and career had already been well covered by Frank Muir's A Kentish Lad and that a book called The Bits Frank Left Out would be too brief.
15.
Denis Norden continued to make occasional television and radio appearances.
16.
Denis Norden contributed to a BBC Four season about the history of satire, and he appeared as a guest on The One Show on 2 October 2008 to talk about his life and career as well as his book.
17.
Denis Norden was interviewed in a one-off documentary called Der Sommer 1939, which was broadcast on 12 August 2009 on the Franco-German television station Arte.
18.
Denis Norden appeared as part of a contribution of show business friends, writers and performers in the BBC documentary The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse in January 2011.
19.
Denis Norden died at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London on 19 September 2018, aged 96, more than two months after the death of his wife.